


Bury Me Deep

by taichara



Category: Rockman X | Mega Man X, Rockman | Mega Man Classic
Genre: Alternate Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 22:16:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5802211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taichara/pseuds/taichara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A little external exploration and internal musing leads to a very unexpected discovery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bury Me Deep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kalloway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalloway/gifts).



> This was going to be something entirely different, but writing an ornery creetchur like Blues has its complications --

_Over. Finally._

Not that Blues had a problem with playing Navigator to a pack of easily confused and probably addled Hunters for upwards of fifteen hours -- he did volunteer for the job, after all. But after those fifteen hours of false bravado and confused swearing and screams of pain echoing through his head, he wanted some time to himself.

More like _needed_ that time, if he admitted it. 

Someday. Maybe. 

Not today, though; today he just wanted out.

Blues was disconnected -- and disappearing from the Navi pool -- before Alia finished issuing the comms-down signal.

-*-

_Seriously, they need bigger mousetraps._

Big mousetraps, yup. Big enough to catch nosy Navigators ...

Blues eeled his way through the dusty passage, taking note of the occasional open work panel (maybe he'd pass it along to someone, if he remembered) and adding his new path choices to the internal map he was building of the Hunters complex. He was mostly sticking to old maintenance crawl-ways today; the air ducts were probably getting to be too much of an open joke at this point. 

_Besides, I've got most of the ducts mapped already._

_Now, how far can I get in these, I wonder? All the way to Cain Industries? Down into the deeps of old HQ, before the orbital hit? Both?_

It was hard to say which was the better option. CI had more non-coms, but was filled with overly inquisitive medigeneers who just loved to try to corner him (noooo thank you); the old HQ could have almost anything in it, but was probably filled with more hazards than an old Indiana Jones flick --

_And me with no integrated armour any more. Oops?_

_But abandoned wrecks have no hordes of flapping Hunters, nosy techs and gossiping Navigators. I know where I'm headed._

... A twinge of guilt stabbed at him, and he squelched it down, taking yet another fork in the tangle of passages. X was probably going to chew his hand off wondering what happened if he was gone too long again.

_Damn it._

_I'll just have to not be that long, then. He'll be tangled up in debriefings and filing reports for hours, anyway._

\-- and at least he didn't much question Blues' habits otherwise. Unlike Rock; back in the day, Rock just didn't grasp it, and now he'd just give Blues a resigned, discomfited look every time it came up.

_Sorry, Rock, I never did have my problems just get solved as easy as the flick of a switch. That's the difference between the two of us._

_This is all less 'issues' and more 'habit turning into hobby' at this point, anyway._

... Oh ho, a half-closed hatchway. Getting warmer? The style and finishing of the walls on the other side looked subtly different; squinting at the walls on his side of the hatch, Blues was fairly certain he could pick up signs of a hasty join. Quick attachment of the crawlspaces? It'd make some kind of sense, if there were environmental hazards at the time ...

_Well, let's see what I can see._

He squeezed through the hatch.

-*-

_What ..._

Two hours of squeezing through rickety, twistedy passages -- and, in the end, even a few air ducts -- and getting scraped up and oozing blood in places for his pains, Blues found himself being suddenly spit out into an actual room. 

And _what_ a room. It wasn't the domed ceiling, or even the dull prismatic flicker of the banks of sensors and other equipment still humming along; no, those were pretty uneventful, even seemed familiar to him. No, it was the glassy row of cold glassy cylinders that lined the curving walls that, once he'd picked himself up from his tumble, held his attention like a moth to fire.

Armour suites. A good dozen of them, glinting in the dim light like dull jewels. Cobalt and violet and black, there; dull rust and blood red and gold, over katty-corner. Ice white trimmed in azure and virulent green ...

Every one of them obviously designed for X's frame. Every last one. None of them matched the ones in HQ's database. They stood -- or hung; he wasn't sure which -- in their cylinders and they _stared_ for all that they didn't have faces. Blues felt an itch crawl down his spine and called his shield out of substorage, its weight a familiar comfort, and engaged his internal recording suite.

_What the hell is going on --_

_... No._

_No way, you old bastard._

His gaze flashed around the room, lenses flickering rapidly behind his visor. Of course the machinery looked familiar. Of course it did.

_You set up shop right beneath his nose, you ..._

Of course X had told him about the hologram -- the AI, he suspected -- of Doctor Light, and how the hologram didn't seem exactly _programmed_. Some of the things it said, and did, and commented on, dropping custom parts like weird warlike gifts ... And Zero had backed that up, wryly recounting a few encounters of his own that made X go silent and look very, very thoughtful.

At the edge of his awareness Blues thought he saw a flicker; something dimly glowing, something colourless.

_No, damn it._

He lifted his chin and pointedly addressed the empty air.

"I know you're there, old man, or whatever's left of you.

"I'm not here to make peace or exchange barbs or any other of the googol of possibilities you're probably running through the algorithms passing for your head. I just happened to find you and your little lab."

His grip tightened on his shield, free hand balling into a fist despite himself.

"That doesn't mean I don't think this is seven different kinds of screwy. You can't do something other than make war toys, now? If you can get yourself set up down here with no one noticing -- if you can leave mysterious pods of armour parts in the weirdest places imaginable -- why didn't you do something about what the government nearly did with Rock and Roll instead of making bigger and better killsticks for their younger brother?

"Why didn't you do something while I was literally rotting away in Wily's abandoned lab for a century and a half?"

The flicker shimmered, shivered, almost resolved itself into a silhouette --

Blues forced himself to relax, scratched his hand through the dark thistle of his hair. And sighed.

"... Okay, look. It doesn't matter. The past doesn't matter. I'm free. Really free. I don't care any more, old man, I built family for myself before I got snapped up and I have a family now."

Dismissing his shield, he turned back to the access hatch he'd tumbled from. A few quick wall-hops and he was perched on the lip --

"But I'm going to head back to HQ, and I'm going to report on what I found, because that's the deal and why Signas hasn't drowned me in his coffee for my stunts.

"And then you can explain yourself to _them_."

\-- and he was gone.


End file.
